The Elephant Coast

This morning we were all up super early at 5am throwing teas and coffee down and packing Karin with a small amount of food and all my camera gear.
At 5:45am we left home and our first stop was the fuel station in MBazwana and when we got there at 6am the queues for the atm machines were already over 100 meters long in both directions, it was crazy and you could see that just getting money out of a hole in the wall has become the new social thing for the young as they were all dressed up looking like they were ready for a night on the town.
After fueling up it was an hours drive back to Tembe elephant park and all the way there, there we passed hundreds of hitchhikers trying to get to work.
At 7am we entered the park, it was an overcast day and actually quite cold and our main reason for leaving so early was to try and see if the lions would be at the watering hole and if not we would wait.
On the way to the hide we passed lots of imyala but not a lot else and at the hide there were just hundreds of Impalas. It was a little disappointing but a sighting is a sighting and any animal out here is always worth seeing, even if we’ve seen it hundred times already.
We gave up with the hide after 45 minutes when Pete suggested we move on to the next hide and both Ellie and I were grateful as we were freezing. Something I never thought I’d say in Africa.
Pete definitely took the scenic route to the second hide as the roads that had been closed previously were now open and we drove and drove looking for anything other than impala’s and Imyala which we were all getting sick of seeing. Then rounding a corner we found fresh elephant poo and round the next corner we found the elephant. He was huge, with massive tusks and he was really calm pulling at the trees and stripping the leaves and we sat with the engine off right next to him for a good 5 minutes until he just disappeared off into the undergrowth. We still can’t believe how quickly and quietly an elephant can disappear and appear from nowhere.
Next we came to a bridge where there were hundreds of Zebra and Impalas and again Pete turned the engine off and we just sat amongst the herd observing there behaviour, it was quite incredible.
Leaving the bridge we rounded a corner and there was a huge male giraffe walking down the road right infront of the car and then he turned in towards the trees and pushed his way through and just like that he had disappeared. The animals camouflage out here really is incredible and you can see it work right before your eyes.
After 3 hours of game driving we finally came to the second hide, the sun was desperately trying to push through the broken cloud so it was slightly warmer and we sat there for about an hour just watching a male impala trying to keep his ladies in line and as soon as a couple weren’t where they should be he would starting mewing really loudly and chasing them around in circles.
Back in the car it was now 1pm and Pete said did we want to carry on with the game drive or go home and both Ellie and I said we were done. We were both having trouble staying awake and heading back home nobody said much in the car as we were all really tired.
Ellie reminded Pete that tomorrow is good Friday which now meant we had to do food shopping in the Mbazwani Spar for food to last us for 5 days and when we got to Mbazwani the place was absolutely heaving. The market was on as it is everyday but today it was just 10 times busier, to get to the store we had to push through the hundreds of people queuing for the ATM’s and the spar was literally standing room only and people were queued from the tills to the end of every aisle at every till. I decided to just stand in one place with the trolley and let Pete and Ellie run around and get the food, then we joined a queue and it took us 45 mins to get to the till and another 10 to get back to the car, it was very stressful.
We got back to the house just after 3:30pm where a day got considerably more stressful when we found out that Pete had left his phone there all day and Hilape’ had answered it and the guest that Pieter had booked into his self catering tent from tomorrow until Monday was now coming today, at 5pm and she wanted feeding. Pieter was not impressed and for the next hour we could see him get more and more anxious until Ellie and I went and hid in our room for 30 minutes while the guest showed up and Pete could do his host thing.
At 5:15pm I decided to venture out and back to the house and there I met Anneka. A big very brash woman of around early 50’s who does seem nice enough and likes whiskey and soda water by the bucket but we do like Pete to ourselves.
From the word go, there was no shutting Anneka up, we tried moving to the roof terrace for sunset as this is where we all like to sit, chill and enjoy the last of the day but still she wouldn’t shut up talking about the view, the cows, what bugs are here, what spiders are here, it was endless.
I went back to our room for 10 minutes to change batteries in things and Ellie came with me and we both said she’s a force.
Then the full moon rose infront of the house and she was calling us back to ask if we could see it and then she was taking pictures of it and showing everyone and sending the pictures to her friends and family. I’d like to think it was because she is excited but the real thing is she just can’t switch off, unplug, relax and enjoy the moment.
Pete cooked us all a lovely beef stew with rice and we listened to Anneka babble all the way through dinner about how to cook steaks properly. I don’t think Pete needs lessons.
Then we all sat in the lounge area and I was desperate for Pete to finish his joint and whiskey so I could just go to bed and finally at 8:50pm I gave up and said I was going to bed.Weiterlesen

By 7:30am we were all awake. Funnily enough I wasn’t the first one up this morning and as I walked up to the house I could already hear hurricane Anneka bellowing away.
The kettle had just boiled so I made a coffee and said my pleasantries then escaped to the roof terrace to wake up slowly. Pete joined me 5 minutes later and said as soon as the staff turn up we’d get going, which was fine with me.
After 2 coffees I took Ellie tea in bed and told her the plan, then I got dressed and went back to the roof terrace.
Pete came back up and said Anneka had wanted to join us so he’d lied and told her that we were going to go on a kayak safari and as we bundled in the car to leave at 8:30am she shouted enjoy your kayaking to Ellie and Ellie got in the car very confused.
We headed down the sandy tracks and back into Mbazwani before joining the highway and 45 mins later we had arrived back at the Mkhuzi game reserve.
Once again we didn’t need to pay as we had the rhino card and after logging our details we just entered the park. Within 500 meters Pete spotted what he thought was a worm on the ground and then realised it was a caterpillar and opened the door and put it in his hand.
It was a monster caterpillar bright green in colour with deep ridges all down it’s back. We later identified it as a lunar moth caterpillar and it was quite beautiful.
For the rest of the day we had a pretty average game drive. We saw hundreds of baby animals which was lovely including impala’s and giraffe. And then we just spotted the usual herds of impalas and Imyala with the odd zebra thrown in.
We stopped for lunch at 12pm in the rhino dino cafe and Pete and I had Ostrich Pittas and they were lovely. Ostrich tastes just like a good steak but with absolutely no fat. Have you ever seen a fat ostrich?
Then it was back to the game drive and the afternoon went pretty much the same as the morning only much, much hotter and we were glad to be leaving at 2:30.
Ellie slept across the back seats all the back to Mbazwani , she definitely isn’t feeling well because of the mild sunstroke but luckily the gland in her thigh has started to go down but Pete is convinced we both have tick bite fever so he stopped at the doctors in Mbazwani only to find they were closed. Pete said we’d try again tomorrow if Ellie wasn’t feeling well.
We got back home and Hurricane Anneka was telling us about her day of nothing and what had been going on on the news so Pete and I grabbed 2 beers from the fridge and Ellie ad a juice and we hid in the roof terrace until sunset.
Then I said we should really go and face the music and sit with Anneka much to Petes disgust and we all went back downstairs only to find that Anneka had gone for a lay down in her room.
There was silence for a change while Pete cooked and the 3 of us just whispered talking trying not to wake her and listened to the evening sounds of Africa come to life. For an hour it was very relaxing. Then dinner was served and hurricane Anneka woke up super charged and we had bellowing across the dinner table again.
After dinner Ellie went straight to bed, Pete, Anneka and I sat talking until Pete changed the subject and got onto WW2 aircraft and my pictures. Something Anneka couldn’t get involved with so at 8pm she went to bed which left just me and Pete on our own until 9pm which was great. Then we both went to bed, it was an unbelievably still night with absolutely no air, I knew sleeping was going to be tough tonight so I took a cold shower and then lay on the bed praying for some kind of breeze that never came.Weiterlesen